The latest Trump political donor to draw controversy is Li Yang, a 45-year-old Florida entrepreneur from China who founded a chain of spas and massage parlors that included the one where New England Patriots owner Bob Kraft was recently busted for soliciting prostitution. She made the news this week when the Miami Herald reported that last month she had attended a Super Bowl viewing party at Donald Trump’s West Palm Beach golf club and had snapped a selfie with the president during the event. Though Yang no longer owns the spa Kraft allegedly visited, the newspaper noted that other massage parlors her family runs have “gained a reputation for offering sexual services.” (She told the newspaper she has never violated the law.) Beyond this sordid tale, there is another angle to the strange story of Yang: She runs an investment business that has offered to sell Chinese clients access to Trump and his family. And a website for the business—which includes numerous photos of Yang and her purported clients hobnobbing at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s private club in Palm Beach—suggests she had some success in doing so.

The latest Trump political donor to draw controversy is Li Yang, a 45-year-old Florida entrepreneur from China who founded a chain of spas and massage parlors that included the one where New England Patriots owner Bob Kraft was recently busted for soliciting prostitution. She made the news this week when the Miami Herald reported that last month she had attended a Super Bowl viewing party at Donald Trump’s West Palm Beach golf club and had snapped a selfie with the president during the event. Though Yang no longer owns the spa Kraft allegedly visited, the newspaper noted that other massage parlors her family runs have “gained a reputation for offering sexual services.” (She told the newspaper she has never violated the law.) Beyond this sordid tale, there is another angle to the strange story of Yang: She runs an investment business that has offered to sell Chinese clients access to Trump and his family. And a website for the business—which includes numerous photos of Yang and her purported clients hobnobbing at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s private club in Palm Beach—suggests she had some success in doing so.

I posted this in the other thread too. The first question that came to mind for me was: how much of a cut did she give Trump for people paying for this "access"?

President Donald Trump's Justice Department is unlikely to grant Democrats in Congress access to underlying evidence from Special Counsel Robert Mueller's probe of Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election, a top congressional Republican said on Friday.

But Rep. Doug Collins, the senior Republican on the House Judiciary Committee who met with Barr last week, told reporters that he expects any effort by Democrats to obtain such data from the Justice Department to end up in court, unless Mueller finds that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia.

Democrats want access to the underlying evidence because of concern that Barr could withhold any incriminating information about Trump. Justice Department policy does not allow a sitting president to be indicted, but also avoids releasing evidence of misconduct against individuals who have not been charged.

"We do not believe there's going to be collusion," Collins added. "There's no more indictments coming from this that we’ve seen so far." Collins said his meeting with Barr showed that the two agree on what the law says about what can be released from the Mueller probe. "He said he wants to make as much available as he possibly can," Collins said. "But he's also going to be a very firm attorney general ... and he'll stay within the guidelines."

The latest Trump political donor to draw controversy is Li Yang, a 45-year-old Florida entrepreneur from China who founded a chain of spas and massage parlors that included the one where New England Patriots owner Bob Kraft was recently busted for soliciting prostitution. She made the news this week when the Miami Herald reported that last month she had attended a Super Bowl viewing party at Donald Trump’s West Palm Beach golf club and had snapped a selfie with the president during the event. Though Yang no longer owns the spa Kraft allegedly visited, the newspaper noted that other massage parlors her family runs have “gained a reputation for offering sexual services.” (She told the newspaper she has never violated the law.) Beyond this sordid tale, there is another angle to the strange story of Yang: She runs an investment business that has offered to sell Chinese clients access to Trump and his family. And a website for the business—which includes numerous photos of Yang and her purported clients hobnobbing at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s private club in Palm Beach—suggests she had some success in doing so.

I posted this in the other thread too. The first question that came to mind for me was: how much of a cut did she give Trump for people paying for this "access"?

My understanding is that access is now part of being a member at Mar-a-Lago. I have read that Mar-a-Lago membership fees have increased substantially as a consequence (here, for example). It's sleazy, but apparently legal. And the attacks on the influence-peddling of the Clinton Foundation form example #3,630 that Republican criticism of Hillary Clinton wasn't in good faith.

President Donald Trump's Justice Department is unlikely to grant Democrats in Congress access to underlying evidence from Special Counsel Robert Mueller's probe of Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election, a top congressional Republican said on Friday.

But Rep. Doug Collins, the senior Republican on the House Judiciary Committee who met with Barr last week, told reporters that he expects any effort by Democrats to obtain such data from the Justice Department to end up in court, unless Mueller finds that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia.

Democrats want access to the underlying evidence because of concern that Barr could withhold any incriminating information about Trump. Justice Department policy does not allow a sitting president to be indicted, but also avoids releasing evidence of misconduct against individuals who have not been charged.

"We do not believe there's going to be collusion," Collins added. "There's no more indictments coming from this that we’ve seen so far." Collins said his meeting with Barr showed that the two agree on what the law says about what can be released from the Mueller probe. "He said he wants to make as much available as he possibly can," Collins said. "But he's also going to be a very firm attorney general ... and he'll stay within the guidelines."

The past is prologue. Everything has been leading up to the defining generational moment of our democracy for two years now, and this will be it. Imagine a Watergate where neither Congress nor the public ever receive the details of what took place, and Nixon just goes right on saying "I'm not a crook" and Congress/the public is just like "well, he probably is, but what are ya gonna do" then make the 70s version of the shrug emoji.

Will we have a democracy going forward, or an authoritarian-led kleptocracy? This is about to be the moment to determine where we go at the inflection point.

One interesting thing I read this weekend... This is from one of those "An anonymous source..." type articles, but if it's true, it's brilliant...

Apparently, Mueller asked Barr to indict Trump. Barr refused. Barr is legally bound to disclose all requests that are refused the special counsel. So by doing this, even if Barr withholds the report, he HAS to disclose the fact that Mueller found evidence worthy of indictment, and that he refused.